DTIC ADP010795: Educational Conditions Successful Training with Virtual Reality Technologies

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ADPO 10795

TITLE: Educational Conditions Successful Training
with Virtual Reality Technologies

DISTRIBUTION: Approved for public release, distribution unlimited

This paper is part of the following report:

TITLE: What is Essential for Virtual Reality
Systems to Meet Human Performance Goals? [les
Caracteristiques essentielles des systemes VR
pour atteindre les objectifs militaires en
matiere de performances humaines]

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the context of the overall compilation report and not as a stand-alone technical report.

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ADPO 10779 thru ADPO 10796

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19-1

Educational Conditions for Successful Training
with Virtual Reality Technologies

Dr. Alexander von Baeyer & Dr. Hartmut Sommer

1ABG1

EinsteinstraBe 20
85521 Ottobrunn
Germany

Summary

The paper focuses on those pedagogical conditions,
which should be met, in order to assure successful
training using virtual reality (VR) technologies.
Therefore, neither new technical inventions nor large
scale technical experiments are the issue of this paper.
Instead a systematic catalogue of pedagogical questions
will be proposed, which should be answered, before
virtual reality is planned for training purposes.

The pedagogical catalogue is derived from the basics of
educational psychology and media didactics. It
comprises

• a taxonomy of learning objects, which are most
suitable for virtual reality

• an analysis of training strategies and methods, as to
how well they are suited for training in an almost
entirely synthetic environment

• an analysis of the transfer of training, when virtual
reality is the major training medium

• and finally rules and basic cost data, which may help
to conduct cost effectiveness analyses.

Introduction

In this paper I will try to give a short and comprehensive
overview on the basics of educational theory, which
should be applied to training with VR technologies. I
will do this in five statements. Each statement or thesis is
accompanied by explanations. I start with a new look on
a well known definition.

Probably everyone in this conference knows, what VR
is. Nevertheless, I will give my own add-on to a
commonly used definition and comment this definition. I
do this, because I want to define important educational
issues.

The common definition reads as follows:

VR is “a multi -dimensional human experience which is
totally or partially computer generated and can be
accepted by those experiencing the environment as
consistent” (NATO DRG Panel 8 on Human Sciences,
RSG 16).

My add-on is:

VR is a capability beyond life, virtual and constructive
simulation and of course much beyond Computer Based
Training systems, however it can be coupled with CBT.
VR can be created, in order to convey training objectives
and support training strategies.

Basic Statements

L Statement

If training is the aim of VR, VR training programmes
must comply with the basics of social and educational
psychology .

These basics do not differ from what should generally be
valid about training with constructive and virtual
simulation. VR is an other example that there should be
such things as simulation didactics. VR, however,
increases the pedagogical requirements to be considered.
These requirements concern mainly

• the distribution of learning material in a multi-
sensory (multi-channel) experience (e.g. seeing,
hearing, feeling of one’s own body, feeling of
material properties, stress, decision making)

• the real experienced presence of an instructor and of
other students during the learning and exercising
process (social learning)

• the merging into VR and leaving the virtual
environment (e.g. different feeling of own security).

Related to these three general problems are the following
practical questions, which will partially be answered in
this paper:

• Are VR technologies justified by relevant training
objectives' ?

• Do VR training programmes enhance the quality of
instruction and bring about better training strategies ?

• Can the typical military crew and leadership
behaviour be preserved in VR, where this is
necessary for training?

• Are the offerings of VR accepted by experts of
training and operation as an environment that
facilitates learning?

• Will there be a chance to construct a consistent
training scenario with new synthetic elements of the
human environment?

These are the educational questions, which the VR
community is invited to discuss further.

2. Statement

If we take the classical taxonomy of learning objectives,
VR can be a relevant medium in complex psycho-motor
training, only for certain cognitive tasks, may be to
indoctrinate in the emotional and affective domain and
(as a still controversial matter) in a real social context .

In principal VR is useful for the following four types of
non-trivial application:

1 For contact with authors: baever@iabg.de and h sommer@i abg.de, respectively; tel. +49 (0)89 6088 21 27, fax +49 (0)89 6088 361 2

Paper presented at the RTO HFM Workshop on ((What Is Essential for Virtual Reality Systems to Meet Military
Human Performance Goals? ”, held in The Hague , The Netherlands , 13-15 April 2000 , and published in RTO MP-058.

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• Perceptual-motor learning, where real images are
mixed with virtual components, e.g. the real hand
manipulating computer generated interfaces (this is
also called Augmented Reality),

• Perceptual cognitive training, when it becomes
necessary to build a “mental map” on the basis of
experience from various sense channels, not only
based on the visual system, e.g. complex assembly
tasks involving orientation in space, finding objects
and moving them from one place to an other,
discriminating different objects

• In general for team training in large scale exercises
like C2 training, large staff exercises, disaster control,
but only as far as co-ordination skills and procedures
are concerned

• And finally the exploration of unknown

environments, provided that the data are up to date.

Examples for these types of application are

• Mission rehearsal, where all merits of VR are
combined

• Reconnaissance, where VR however must have an
added value to conventional simulation and training.

The total immersion into a synthetic environment leads
to the exclusion of non-intended and disturbing
information. This fact can be used or better: misused for
indoctrination purposes. Sales promotions, radical
behaviour changes, rapid conveying of emotional
stimulus response patterns can be the objectives of such
techniques. This again leads to the question, if and how
much VR inhibits the ability of critical distance to the
learning of those tasks, which require a critical attitude,
e.g. all tasks comprising decision making between not
fully transparent alternatives.

The impact of total immersive VR technology on the
emotional behaviour is therefore a challenging new
research question.

Social learning is however not yet sufficiently
researched in fully immersive VR. The main problem
lies in the isolating effect of VR. This means that it is
still a not yet proven hypothesis, whether the acquisition
of interpersonal skills, even and especially if they are
interconnected with cognitive or procedural tasks can be
supported by those VR technologies, which isolate the
individual from direct personal contact with another
individual in the same learning group. There are,
however, semi-immersive VR-technologies like the
cave- technique or the virtual workbenches, where
individuals interact with each other “naturally”. These
techniques cover therefore in principle the all classes of
learning objectives.

5. Statement

Training Strategies in VR do not differ much from those
in virtual simulation and in CBT. However, they require
more dedicated analysis and development, because VR
offers more perceptual cues .

In comparison to constructive and virtual simulation VR
has some distinctive features, which make it particularly

valuable for articulated teaching and learning strategies.
These features are:

• a broader perceptual spectrum

• a higher degree of differentiation in the perceptions
(e.g. more depth cues)

• a higher degree of interactivity with the virtual
environment.

These three properties of a deeper immersion into the
artificial world offer the possibility, to differentiate and
structure learning activities in a more effective way.

The advantages of learning and teaching with VR
technologies are:

• more learning material can be presented to the
students

• part task and part function training can be applied to
a broader variety of learning tasks

• feedback control of learning success can become
more differentiated and apply to a broader spectrum
of tasks

• it may become easier to compose a set of part tasks to
a real world like whole task in a almost realistically
perceived learning environment

However, VR requires a much more developed art of
constructing the curricula and of designing the learning
programmes and the learning aids. In short: VR makes
the training development much more demanding and
requires higher developmental qualifications.

4. Statement

The transfer of training into the operational situation
has to be carefully analysed, because VR represents
nevertheless only a part of (,real reality
As we have already said, the social dimension of reality
is still hardly present in learning with VR technologies.
Along with this, decisive other aspects of the learner are
still drastically altered. These are

• the perception of the bodily self, which may be
necessary in many psycho-motor learning tasks

• die unnatural feeling of wearing a helmet or a glove,
which does either not resemble the normally worn
helmets and gloves, or is a totally unrealistic feeling

• the multi-sensory perception of the environment, e.g.
the not real feeling to walk a distance

• the apperception of the partner in the learning
process, whenever this may be required for the
acquisition of team building skills

• the apperception of the instructors, whenever this
may have a motivational effect on the learning
process or is a part of team building skills —
remember that in typical military tasks training and
personal example and leadership can not be
separated.

All this means that skill acquisition by means of VR
technologies puts the learner in sometimes extremely
artificial surroundings, encapsulates his consciousness
and lets him leave this virtual world with a repository of
artificial behaviours. The first thing after leaving the
artificial world of VR is to re-leam those behaviours,
which do not fully comply with the operational

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environment, to de-condition the learner away from the
partially reduced and partially enriched experience
towards a normal interaction with the operational
environment. This again means, that although VR is an
expensive training and an often time valuable medium,
the transfer of training cannot be taken for granted and
must be ascertained with much effort. If the curricular
and didactic analysis has identified those tasks and skills
that cannot be trained with VR, the transfer of training of
the remaining VR-prone tasks can be evaluated without
too big problems.

5. Statement

Cost and effectiveness of training with VR must he
compared with training using virtual simulation .
Whenever virtual simulation is feasible , VR shoidd he
analysed, whether it can produce better or cheaper
solutions than virtual simulation.

On the effectiveness side of the comparison cost
effectiveness analyses should consider the following
issues:

• The enhanced representation of new and extended
sensorial perceptions may increase the effectiveness.

• The possibility of mission rehearsal and procedural
training in extreme situations, where total immersion
is the only realistic experience, may also increase the
effectiveness (good example may be the training for
operations and maintenance in space or deep water).

• The reduced personal and interpersonal experience is
definitely a factor, which decreases the effectiveness
of VR in training.

On the cost side of the comparison the following issues
should be considered:

• The HMD technology is a cost decreasing factor.

• The software development is a drastically increasing
factor.

• Re-training and special transfer of training analyses
can become cost increasing factors.

Therefore, considering VR for training should always
start with cost effectiveness analyses based upon
thoroughly conducted training analyses. However, the
cost savings can reach several orders of magnitude, if
training using VR is correctly designed. Examples are
cargo handling skills or air drop skills, where the real
aeroplane would be too expensive and virtual simulation
is not giving the necessary depth cues.

Conclusion

To conclude this survey: What are the conditions of
success of VR in training?

1 . For the time being a limitation to tasks, which do not
imply any personal proximity of other persons.

2. For the future more critical research into the
interpersonal and social impact of VR and how far
social interactions can be simulated in an total
immersive environment.

3. Always limitation to empirically researched and
proven simulation cues.

4. Always embedded in a well controlled transfer of
training evaluation.

5. Always planned on the basis of cost effectiveness
analyses.

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